llDayo

Pervy already said mine. If God exists and is so powerful he'd know exactly what evidence I would need, even though I don't even realize what evidence that would be.

Keith&Co.

I gotta agree with Pervy, too.

I don't know what it would take.

I do know that what's been offered so far has failed to withstand scrutiny.

I'm not going to believe in a supreme deity because someone finds the idea of a godless universe offensive. Or because they find evolution to be an unhappy ending. Or because they're really poor at math and/or logic. Or based on conflicting testimony, we should accept the RIGHT ones and ignore the BAD ones solely on a modern authority's sayso.

Ultimately, your question answers itself: What hard evidence is there?

Truth_Seeker

This is simply not true. Atheists are skeptical by nature. Some of us who are former Christians, are now atheists because we began to question those things that are believed without question by Christians. Believe me....when I first began to have doubts about the existence of God, I wanted desperately to continue in my beliefs....but the more I began to question my faith, the more I realized how much it was lacking. The more I searched out for the truth, the more apparent it became. And trust me, I searched HARD! I prayed to God daily, asking Him to reveal himself to me. If God really wanted me to believe in him, this didn't seem like such a hard task. I BEGGED him to restore my faith. Not a selfish prayer at all. But it was never answered. What evidence would it take? I'm not sure. But as an atheist AND a skeptic, I am always searching for truth, and examining all credible evidence that I come across. Should overwhelming evidence be presented to me one day that can logicaly prove the existence of God beyond any doubt (not very likely), then I will change my mind. Are you willing to do the same? Are you willing to question your beliefs based on all the evidence available, or lack thereof?

Volker

Me, too. What you describe was my reaction to my doubts, exactly. I waited and tried and waited for years. Nothing ever happened. I begged, I made promises, and I didn't get an answer. And with each passing year, my belief got weaker and my doubts stronger.

I would start to believe in god again if there were strong miracles. The stars spelling out "god exists", which can be seen by all man. Or, when tomorrow all books I open contain the bible. Or something like that. I'm open-minded, but not open enough to accept anything. If your mind is too open, your brain will fall out.

I've asked the opposite question a few christians, but none so far has sad anything that could happen during their lifetime. Its one thing to ask atheist would should happen to make them change their mind. But ask the question yourself and see if you're more expecting from atheists as you want to give yourself.

Ezkerraldean

evidence: i want to see god. either personally or professionally detected/recorded.

Selsaral

Ordinary stuff.

Now let me ask you something: do you believe me? Usually when this question is posed it's insinuating that atheists won't accept any actual evidence.

I am a bit dismayed here, because this is the exact kind of thing that I would not consider good evidence. From my perspective, religions were created by humans for a variety of sociological and psychological reasons. So you can't present evidence that is indistinguishable from normal human superstition and expect it to be taken seriously.

Let me elaborate on this point: if religions were invented by humans for sociological reasons, contradictory documents (and stories) would be all they could offer. If religions were inspired by a God who wanted people to believe in him, the only reason he would choose that exact same communication method is if he deliberately wanted people to confuse his 'official' message with the thousands of other messages humans themselves have created. God can do anything he wants, yet he chooses a communication method that is completely indistinguishable from the one used by Scientology? My bullshit alarms are ringing so loud I can barely think.

Feel free to elaborate or correct me, but I suspect you are talking about stories and personal testimony.

Again, God can choose any method to communicate, but he does it in a way that is indistinguishable from pure imagination? He can't provide any better evidence than a scientologist or Moonie? His religion has the exact same evidence as Zeus-worship?

If it's true that religion was invented by humans for sociological and psychological reasons, then stories (ancient documents are one form of story) and personal testimony is all they could offer. So when I see a religion that offers only stories and personal testimony, my bullshit alarm starts ringing.

I want some evidence that is categorically different from the type that a simple superstitious human (convinced of their beliefs but wrong) could offer.

I want evidence that would eliminate the chance that I am fooling myself. This means it can't involve delving into my imagination and searching desperately for some 'voice' inside my own mind to say something to me. People hear voices all the time. It must be evidence that other people can verify so I know I am not imagining it.

In essence, it must be scientific evidence. Science is in many ways simply a system that attempts to stop us from fooling ourselves. This is why it requires independant verification: any person can mistakenly perceive or believe anything.

Smullyan-esque

There are two different questions in here, really. There's the "What would it take to make you believe in an omnimax God?" question, and the "What would it take to make you a follower of a superior being?" question.

For the first question, I can't think of ANYTHING that would make me believe in an omnimax God. What sort of proof could possibly convince you that a being has infinite power? Each miracle you witness is only evidence for some finite amount of power, albeit power far superior to human abilities. The "infinite" part must be assumed, usually because you've been told to believe that by your church.

For the second question, I could imagine myself becoming a follower of some superior being. It wouldn't take too much. Just the ability to have a real conversation (like the conversations I have with my wife. None of this "you feel the answer in your heart" fakery), and good reasons to believe that the superior being is morally worth following. In fact, I could follow a NON-superior being, if they met those requirements. For example: If Martin Luther King Jr. was alive today, I'd probably follow him.
Well, it is REFUTED, right? If something is refuted, it's NOT evidence, right? How about bringing some non-refutable evidence, like the sort of evidence we usually call "evidence"?

Viti

It would have to be some personal revelation of some kind, one I simply couldn't deny was from a specific deity.

Koyaanisqatsi

Ahhh, this old chestnut. I tell you what; since you're the one making the claim, it's up to you to provide the evidence you're basing the claim on. It's also up to you to reject anything that isn't evidence (like two thousand year old anecdotal cult stories, for example), so as not to immediately discredit yourself and your claim.

See, that's the problem; it is your fault you believe what you believe, due either to operant conditioning, or extreme gullibility. That you do not require a higher standard of evidence than, "I was told it was true," or, "This book says it was true," or "My parents told me it was true and they wouldn't lie to me," should be profoundly unacceptable, but it is not.

:huh:

See, the way it is supposed to work is, somebody makes a claim and then they prove their claim. If they don't (or won't or can't) then the claim is void of substance and should be discarded. It's not our job (humanity's job) to do anything but evaluate the evidence they provide to independently determine whether or not the evidence proves the claim.

If it doesn't, then the one who made the claim must either come up with better evidence, or discard their claim, not create a whole wing of spin doctors, whose sole purpose is to twist the truth every possible way to Sunday in order to just assert that cult members are immune from having to prove their claims.

There can be only one reason for that, of course; the inherent understanding that cult claims are worthless and their cult one giant lie, but somehow this blatant fact never seems to gestalt its way through the cult.

I wonder why that is...?

Particulalry since it'sa painfully simple system, you know; make a claim, prove your claim.

:huh:

But cult members never follow it; can't follow it in fact, because if they ever did, no claim. POOF!

So, instead they post things like what you posted; putting the onus on us to tell you what we'd accept.

Why? So that you can sleep comfortably knowing that we are so demanding and so "closed minded" and so....insert whatever demonizing bullshit you want in order to allow you to sleep better at night.

But as I said, the truth is that it is your responsibility--and I use that term deliberately, of course--your responsiblity to prove your claim, or discard it, so if you can't prove it to us, then you can't prove it period and you should discard it.

That is what it means to be an honest seeker of truth and not just another cult member.

:huh:

Classical

If I saw all the major composers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Brahms resurrect from the dead, form an ensemble and perform before a live audience, then this would be a good start.

Of course, this would require an enormous number of witnesses with video cameras recording films of the bones coming up from the ground, the organs and bodies materializing and then each composer beginning to speak of what they experienced while dead and then appearing on international television with a panel of doctors and world wide witnesses declaring that this is the most vivid example of a supernatural event ever known.

Then I may even need the composers to appear before me personally and perform so I could critique their skills and verify to my own personal satisfaction that they could replicate the intricasies of each of their styles. Then they would have to tell me personally that they met God face to face as well as Jesus and be able to point a telescope in the direction or at least explain the realm in which heaven exists.

I think this would be really convincing evidence for me personally.

Classical